Protesters agree to end wool boycott

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The damaging international boycott campaign against the wool industry over its treatment of sheep could soon be over.

The US group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals withdrew its protesters from stores yesterday as part of a 45-day moratorium in its crusade against mulesing - cutting skin from around a sheep's anus to minimise the chance of flystrike. The animal rights group has called the process barbaric.

It also published a document drawn up with the Australian Wool Growers Association that potentially paves the way to end a battle nearly a year old in which the animal rights group persuaded clothing businesses to boycott Australian wool and the Australian wool industry spend millions of dollars on advertising and legal action.

In return for ending the campaign the animal rights group is demanding that wool growers start using analgesics to ease the pain of sheep that are mulesed and begin cutting the number mulesed by up to 25 per cent a year until the practice stops by 2010.

The wool industry has already promised to end mulesing by 2010, and Australian Wool Innovation is hopeful of commercialising a protein injection alternative as early as 2007. The industry has argued that ending mulesing without an alternative would lead to the deaths of millions of animals. The moratorium is to give the association time to talk to others in the industry to see if they will agree to the compromise.

While the association has urged talks with the animal rights group, the mainstream wool lobby has maintained that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals could not be negotiated with because it was an extremist organisation.

The mission statement of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which has about 850,000 members, says it "operates under the simple principle that animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment".

Chick Olsson, a Goulburn wool grower and chairman of the association, said: "This is a significant breakthrough for Australian woolgrowers. To see an immediate lifting of boycotts of Australian wool will instil some much needed confidence in the marketplace and will relieve our international customers of unnecessary pressure."

The animal rights group has also agreed to stop opposing the live export of sheep as long as it happens in accordance with Australia's highest animal welfare standards.

Robert Pietsch, a Glenn Innes wool grower and a leader of the mainstream wool taskforce, said the animal rights group's announcement amounted to a backdown.

"It clearly demonstrates that [the] campaign has not been as successful as it had intended and that the radical group is looking to salvage some level of credibility," he said. "[The group] has today acknowledged that it is not in the best interests of Australian sheep to end mulesing without a viable alternative."

Mr Pietsch warned that history showed the group "cannot be trusted, and I would say in regards to this agreement, beware of a wolf in sheep's clothing".

THE STORY SO FAR

- October 2004: Global campaign against mulesing begins.

- November: Wool industry promises research aimed at ending mulesing by 2010. Starts legal action against People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

- December: Graphic anti- mulesing billboards erected in New York and Los Angeles.